215s - Standard Stop and Go?

[PrayingMantis]

I don't see the point of stop and going here.

a) It doesn't matter much with the stack sizes, because you have very little FE post flop, so it's not like you can really make button fold too much here. The purpose of normal S&G is to put enough pressure on the raiser in order to make him fold some hands before he has a chance to see turn and river. Having a big enough stack is usualy essenatial.

b) If button is bullying now with a wide range, AJ is a very clear favorite against him. Putting all the money in when you're ahead, PF, and as the short stack (i.e, simply trying to double up) is very good for you. No need to be tricky. In this sense, a stop and go might make a bit more sense if you had some garbage, and by this strange flat call PF you might actually make button suspect you have a monster of something, and by that could (very little chance) make him fold a somewhat better hand post-flop.

c) You are risking BB seeing a relatively cheap flop with a marginal hand. If you say BB is tight, and his stack is too small, so this is not a real fear, but why get fancy and then regret it?

Bottom line, I don't like. Play simple: push.

[Unarmed]

Alright, my slider was all the way to the right PF, but lately I've been taking a second to think, hmmm, does a SNG make more sense here? If I have zero FE PF and lack a big pair, it usually does. The presence of BB screws this situation up a bit, but frankly, there were no hands he would call/push here that would have folded to a push. Actually, there are no hands that I would call with there either that I fold to a push. Honestly, I LIKED the presence of the tight BB here because it made it look like I wanted another customer for my AA.

So anyway, it seemed I had nothing to lose by trying the SNG, so I did. We can argue that there really isn't any point in doing it, but I don't think we can argue that its worse than pushing PF. Anyway, he sat and sat and ran his timer down on the 78Q flop and finally called with KT and rivered a straight. YAY! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[durron597]

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So anyway, it seemed I had nothing to lose by trying the SNG, so I did.

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78Q flop and finally called with KT and rivered a straight. YAY! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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Yes, but you WANT him to call with KT on a 78Q flop. The only hand you want him to fold in that situation is like 55.

[Unarmed]

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Yes, but you WANT him to call with KT on a 78Q flop. The only hand you want him to fold in that situation is like 55.

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Thanks for the poker lesson D, the check's in the mail. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[ChrisV]

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Yes, but you WANT him to call with KT on a 78Q flop. The only hand you want him to fold in that situation is like 55.

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Thanks for the poker lesson D, the check's in the mail. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

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Actually (providing I'm understanding your sarcasm properly, Unarmed) you're both wrong. You want him to fold KT on that flop. His EV is 0.240, which gives him equity in the final pot of 485 and he only has to call 410. That's before we even get into ICM considerations.

There are problems with the stop and go:

(1) The dream scenario, where they fold 22 on the flop KT8, or something, may not come up at all. Witness this hand where the guy called with king high - presumably he'd be calling with a pair as well.

(2) There are scenarios that come up often that are bad for you. Don't forget, the big stack is bullying, so he could have virtually anything. Him folding 87 on an AK3 flop, for example, sucks - it represents a loss of 380 chips and a fair sized ICM loss as well. This scenario is a fair bit more common than your dream scenario.

I have a post floating around my head about stop and gos, the most abused play in SNGs - not sure if I'll get time to write it out.

[durron597]

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Thanks for the poker lesson D, the check's in the mail. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

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[img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] i R ub3r.

Seriously, there has been a lot of debate over the last year on 2+2 about the stop and go and one of the things that I found most true is that there are many situations where you really don't mind your opponent calling. I mean, say the board had been A high and your opponent folded his KT because he "put you on an ace". That's 400 less chips that should have been yours.

Really, the stop and go a lot of times is only causing folds where you don't really want them (except to reduce variance I guess).

[puzzlemoney]

Noobish question here that nobody has mentioned: What if he bets the flop? Can you get away from nearly 4:1 odds vs. a bullying opponent?

Will he bet this so rarely that it doesn't matter? If he's going to call a bet, won't a good opponent bet here to see if you still like your hand?

[tigerite]

How's he going to bet the flop when Unarmed is first to act..

[puzzlemoney]

D'oh!

Okay, I'm really not that much of a noob... But I sure managed to confuse myself somehow.

...Never mind, then. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[tigerite]

No worries. I made a fool of myself with that chip count and odds thing the other day, after all [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]